Garbage truck that keeps on truckin thanks to garbage

People over in Huddersfield, England have come up with a way to power a vehicle by having it haul the very fuel it needs to run it. Of course most vehicles do this nowadays by carrying gasoline or diesel, but this garbage truck gets its running juice by carrying fuel donated by consumers on it’s route everyday – refuse.{ad}

This Smith Edison 3.5-ton Ford Transit has been outfitted with a 40 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack that it uses to get around on its daily trash route. The garbage collected is then carried off to the local waste power station and recycling center where the it is sorted and the appropriate garbage is then burned to create electricity. The garbage truck is then plugged in after a hard day’s haul and after 6-8 hours of rest it is ready to go again on the next day’s trash route.

Of course the power generated by the waste power station is more than enough to keep the garbage truck rolling on the road. In fact the power generated from burning garbage creates about 10 megawatts of electricity every day.

Doug’s Opinion
Over the next ten to twenty years as electric vehicles become more popular you may be seeing more than just the average car on the daily commute running on electricty. This garbage truck for example, is just one way companies have figured out a way to supply power to their own vehicles needed each day.

Other companies that may not be in the business of burning garbage to make electricity could get the juice needed to power their vehicles from solar panels or waste heat generators. Eventually those power generators would pay for themselves by the savings made by not having to purchase fuel for the vehicles.

Speak Your Mind

Michael

I’d be interested in seeing the carbon footprint of a small-scale garbage burning plant. We have much more to be concerned about than simply reliance on fossil fuels. Unfortunately, the time has come that we need solutions to several problems all at once. We can’t just bounce from problem to problem anymore.

Wez McKeays

In all the publicity focussed on electric vehicles such as the Tesla sportscar and the humble G-Wiz, it’s amazing to find that Smith have been producing electric vehicles for 85 years – in which time they’ve shipped an estimated 70 thousand of them worldwide! Check out the Case Studies page at their website to see the uses to which about 400 of them have been put in the past year or so http://www.smithelectricvehicles.com

Wez McKeays

In all the publicity focussed on electric vehicles such as the Tesla sportscar and the humble G-Wiz, it’s amazing to find that Smith have been producing electric vehicles for 85 years – in which time they’ve shipped an estimated 70 thousand of them worldwide! Check out the Case Studies page at their website to see the uses to which about 400 of them have been put in the past year or so http://www.smithelectricvehicles.com